Here’s An Awesome Map Of the Most Liked Cereal In Every State

America loves its cereal. Find out which are liked best where in this magically delicious map.

There are literally hundreds of different types of cereal to choose from. Entire aisles in the grocery store are devoted to the stuff. It seems as though no matter your taste, there’s a cereal for you.

The Movoto Real Estate Blog cooked up an idea to find out just how those tastes vary from state to state.

Using this map, you can clearly see where exactly each top-selling cereal is favored, which are, well, not favored at all, and which are the clear winners (we knew we weren’t the only Cinnamon Toast Crunch addicts out there).

Before we talk details, let’s take a quick look at how we created this cool map.

How We Created This Map

In order to put it all together, we switched from Home-Selling Expert to Math Nerd mode and researched the number of Facebook users in each state who have Liked each of the 10 most popular cereals. Those cereals, according to the amount of revenue they generate in 2013, are:

Honey Nut Cheerios

Frosted Flakes

Honey Bunches of Oats

Cheerios

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Special K

Frosted Mini Wheats

Lucky Charms

Froot Loops

Raisin Bran

Then we sorted the data out into a nice, neat little spreadsheet, and made this awesome map—simple as fixing yourself a bowl of cereal.

Now that you’ve seen the ingredients that went into this delicious presentation, let’s take a closer look at each type of cereal and where they were popular.

1. Honey Nut Cheerios

Oh how the mighty have fallen—well, at least on Facebook.

It may be the best-selling cereal in the nation, but in our analysis, not one state favored it more than the other 10 cereals on Facebook.

With 30,000 Likes, the state that seemed the most fond of these sweet little Os was Texas; but even there, they favored Special K, with a whopping 148,000 Likes. That’s 18.18 percent of the cereal-eating population in the state.

2. Frosted Flakes

They’re grrrrrrreat…ly underappreciated on Facebook, apparently.

Even though Frosted Flakes is one of the 10 best-selling cereals in the U.S., it certainly isn’t winning any popularity contests on Facebook.

It wasn’t the most popular in any state. Where it was most popular, once again, was in Texas with 14.49 percent of the state’s population Liking the cereal. This was followed by Florida, where 13.30 percent of residents Liked it, and then Washington where 3.84 Liked it.

3. Honey Bunches of Oats

You may be able to “taste the joy in every spoonful” of this cereal, but clearly, that don’t mean people are going to like you.

Honey Bunches of Oats was another cereal that didn’t come up as anyone’s favorite. Even out of the places that liked it most—Florida, Texas, Washington, Illinois, and then Oklahoma—it was not a favorite, but hey, at least it was consistently better Liked than Raisin Bran and Froot Loops.

4. Cheerios

Introduced in the early ‘40s, literally millions of bellies have been filled with these little Os. Americans love this stuff.

Or so we thought!

According to our analysis, Cheerios might be waning in popularity, at least among the Facebook crowd.

It wasn’t a favorite in any of the states, and in places like Vermont it received fewer than 1,000 Likes on Facebook. Sure, you’re saying, Vermont is pretty sparsely populated—but that didn’t stop 4,000 hungry Vermonters from Liking every other cereal’s arch nemesis, Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

5. Cinnamon Toast Crunch

There’s something so magical and comforting about this cereal—perhaps it’s all the sugar they pack into each serving, but we just love the stuff.

Who else Likes it, you ask? Only a majority of the people in 27 states.

In trying to find a pattern here, well, the only that I can see is that these states are clearly the ones with better taste in cereal, because other than that, Cinnamon Toast Crunch fans are pretty well scattered all over the country, much like those for our next cereal…

6. Special K

Do you know what the Special K Challenge should be? Finding any state in the U.S. where fewer than 4,000 people Like Special K.

Even in Wyoming, a practical ghost state, 3,600 people on Facebook Liked Special K, making it the most popular cereal in the state.

7. Frosted Mini Wheats

Frosted Mini Wheats are popular, just not quite on par with Special K or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. They’re like the Gretchen Weiners of the breakfast world.

While Frosted Mini Wheats were clearly well Liked in many of the states, earning
15.48 percent of the votes in Texas and 13.96 in Florida (the fourth and third most popular in these states, respectively), they were only the very most Liked in one state: West Virginia.

8. Lucky Charms

Who doesn’t like a bowl of candy for breakfast?! Well, apparently people old enough to type, read, or, you know, get on Facebook.

None of the states liked the magically delicious cereal the most. In Oklahoma, for example, 1.34 percent of residents liked Lucky Charms, preferring Special K, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, Frosted Mini Wheats, and even Honey Bunches of Oats, who, let’s face it, is not exactly Prom Queen of the cereals.

But don’t worry, Lucky Charms fans whose parents are reading this to you right now, this cereal was at least more popular than Raisin Bran.

9. Froot Loops

Before we get to making fun of Raisin Bran, though, we have to give a big congratulations to Froot Loops, which somehow managed to be the most Liked cereal in Kentucky.

Yes, good old Kentucky, land of fried chicken, hushpuppies, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, and, well, pretty much fried anything, for some reason, has an affinity for the much lighter and fruitier flavors of Froot Loops.

Whatever the reason, 1.61 percent of residents Liked Froot Loops, which was more than any of the other 10 cereals. Way to go, Toucan Sam.

10. Raisin Bran

In putting together this post, we actually didn’t list the cereals in any particular order, but as it happens, our final cereal is also the least popular by a longshot.

Poor Raisin Bran just isn’t cool with the kids on Facebook; it wasn’t Liked the most in any state, and it even got fewer than 1,000 Likes in eight states—one of which was Vermont, a state of over 25 million residents.

Yes, it seems to be a sad day for Raisin Bran. Maybe if they just spiffed up their outreach, went for a younger demographic , or even, dare we suggest, bring in the Jonas?

Ah, too late.

A Tale of Two Cereals

As you can see, this map is pretty much dominated by two cereals: Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Special K.

There were a couple others that popped up as favorites, namely Frosted Mini Wheats and Froot Loops, but for the most part, these two ruled the breakfast table like queen bees in a hive.

Facebook Conversations

2 Comments

Two observations: First, your research has only identified the favorite cereals of people who “like” those cereals’ Facebook pages.

Second, I’m of the opinion that biggest selling cereals don’t necessarily mean favorites. Honey Nut Cheerios are seen as a “compromise” cereal for parents. A healthy, bland cereal meets a kid pleasing sweetener. Many people buy cereal based on other factors than “favorite”. This doesn’t reflect on your research, it reflects on the list of Best Sellers.